A few more UFO sightings over Arcadia, Port Charlotte, and Sarasota have been added to NUFORC's database this spring. Since they're all anonymously posted, it's hard to tell what, if any, impact these events have on witnesses.

But every now and then, someone like Cathy Mills will step up and volunteer some life-altering details.

On the evening of Feb. 28, around 8:30, Mills and her husband were driving north along McIntosh Road, leaving Sarasota Square Mall when, off the passenger side to the east, a row of four whitish lights in the sky flashed on so brightly they illuminated low clouds nearby. They stayed that way for maybe three seconds, according to Mills, revealing the doughnut-shaped contours of a round, hovering object, before blinking off.

Mills' husband, the driver, said, "Did you see that?" but he kept his voice low, not wanting to alarm their three preoccupied kids in the back of the van. The lights flashed once more, for another three seconds or so, before going black. And that was that. Event duration - maybe 10 seconds.

"It was not a plane, it was not a helicopter, it was not normal," says the Sarasota resident. "Never in a million years did I expect to see something like this."

She went back to the scene the next day, trying to figure out if she'd missed a lighting tower or some other feature. She called the police, to no avail. She'd drive past the site at night, wondering if it would come back. Come April, she was Googling UFOs, and she filed her story online [here]:

"I'm a Christian and I've grown up with God all my life," she says. "Now I find myself trying to figure out how this fits into the picture, because your logical mind wants an explanation."

Lately, at night, when Mills steps outside for a cigarette, she anticipates things. Maybe that's its own reward.

"What I realized is," she says, "I've never really looked up at the sky before."